Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

He started his check of the instruments.

“So yes, I do think about how my life might be different. I don’t necessarily want it to be different but, not having had a proper childhood, children interest me. It’s more abstract than being broody.”

Natalie fixed her seat belt. “When I spent the night with your mother, in her tent, the night before Russell left, before Ndekei had been caught, she talked about her passion for the gorge, about your father’s womanizing, and about how he had infused her with a love for paleontology. She mentioned her children, but almost in passing. Were your parents not good parents?”

He checked the altimeter. “How do children ever know how to answer that question? You only get one shot at it, don’t you? Our parents expected us children to be adults as soon as possible. Is that being a good parent, or not?”

She smiled. “You don’t seem to have turned out too badly.”

When Jack said nothing, she added, “Have you ever failed at something?”

He frowned. “Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. An exam? A relationship that you wanted to succeed? A job or a task?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Answer the question first, then I’ll tell you.”

He seemed satisfied with the instruments and sat back in his seat. “Just now, I mentioned a woman who died. She was called Roxanna and I said I nearly married her, but that’s a lot less than the whole truth. We had been going out with each other for several months and she, I know, was very much in love with me. I was just as much in love with her, at least to begin with, but then one big thing came between us. She didn’t want children. She loved her career—she was an agent for actors and actresses and traveled a lot—and children would have slowed her down.” He fixed his seat belt. “Well, I did want children. They were, they still are, the whole point of marriage for me. So I was preparing to tell Roxy that we should go our separate ways.” He took down his headphones from where they were hooked up on the dashboard. “And it was at that point that she was diagnosed as suffering from leukemia. She had been feeling tired for ages and once the diagnosis had been made she was given about a year to live.”

Jack rubbed his chin with his fingers. “We were both devastated, of course, and in those circumstances I couldn’t leave her. It would have been too cruel. So I never said anything, I lived a lie—for fifteen months as it turned out, as I watched Roxy sink and die.” He put on his headphones. “That felt like a failure, not being able to come clean.”

“I’m not sure that qualifies as real failure,” replied Natalie. “It wasn’t very brave , perhaps. On the other hand, it was kind. My point is that the psychologists say the most important years for determining character are the early ones, when we are infants. Others say our teens are important but I think that our twenties are the most important decade. Why? Because that’s the first time that most of us fail in life. Your twenties are when life gets real. Families and school protect you from reality, to an extent. They are designed to do so, quite properly. But in your twenties you have your first job, you tend to get married, have children, you are finally an adult. And, for the most part, and for the first time, you have to confront failure. How you cope with your first real failure is all-important for how life will turn out.”

“And your failure …?”

“You know about.”

“How are you coping?”

“…I’ll get by.”

“You’re very beautiful. With longer hair you could be Veronica Lake. That must help. You’ll always have men chasing you.”

She shook her head. “Looks are a start, that’s all, as I told you in Nairobi. There are all sorts of things that make up me that you don’t know about. For instance, I was a difficult birth—in fact, I was a caesarean that went wrong. Because of my difficult birth, my mother couldn’t have any more children.” She eyed Jack. “My parents called me ‘Natalie,’ they said, because my birth was precious, the only one God gave them. But of course, for me, even my name reminds me of what happened then, why my birth was so precious. Even my name is a reproach. That doesn’t happen to many people.”

He nodded. “Look,” he said. “This is all very serious. This is the most serious afternoon I’ve ever spent in Ngorongoro, and I’ve loved it, but I want to take off while part of the crater is in sunshine. Otherwise, when you come out of the shadow into the warm air, you can get a few bumps. So can we continue this later?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” he said, pressing the button that fired the first engine. “If you want, on the way back you can have your first flying lesson. It will have to be now because I’m going to Nairobi tomorrow.”

The second engine fired into life.

“Can I afford you, Dr. Deacon? What are your charges?”

He was listening to the tone of the engines. Then he looked across and smiled. “I’m expensive—and I need a down payment, right now. I’ll take it in kind.” He leaned across and planted a kiss on her cheek.

Dear Russell , Thank you for your letter. I am sorry I haven’t written before but, to be honest, I am a little afraid of your strength of feeling so far as the gorge and the Deacons are concerned, and letters always risk being misinterpreted. I understand your point of view, of course I do, and in many ways I sympathize but… well, not in all ways. I’ll come back to that . First, professional matters. Several discoveries have been made since you left. Some of them are minor, but not all, and you should know that we have located a jawbone, three teeth, and three nicely curved skull bones which, we believe, belong to the same individual as the knee joint found by Daniel, Richard, and you. That’s what the anatomist, Jonas Jefferson—you’ll remember him—told us today, anyway . I know that you always feared that just such a discovery might be made in the wake of your tibia and femur and that you may feel this subsequent find will overshadow yours. I am not at all sure that is true: the origin of bipedalism is much more important than fresh details about ancient man’s brain size or diet, though the overall picture is clearly important. I also think you should know, for the record and not out of any misplaced pride, that it was me who found the jaw, with the teeth and associated cranial bones . We have also found a wall, which appears to be some kind of shelter, and have sent a paper on it to Nature . Everyone here sends good wishes but we do all hope that you will think twice about making even more of a fuss than you have already stirred up. It is not dignified and doesn’t help in the long run. If you have any feeling for me, please bear in mind what I say .

Natalie broke off and looked across the camp. She had showered not long before and was feeling relaxed. She could see Arnold Pryce sketching outside his tent, Daniel tinkering with the Land Rovers. Kees had a collection of stones on a trestle table outside his quarters. She loved the atmosphere of quiet busyness.

No sign of Christopher or Jack. The evening before, Christopher had stopped by her tent. She had thought his visits had ended.

She had been sitting quietly, smoking, and contemplating the very letter to Russell that she was now writing. She ought to have started it before, as she had promised Eleanor she would, but Russell’s rawness was difficult to address in a letter; she risked being misunderstood.

“I hear you went to Ngorongoro,” Christopher had said, once she invited him to sit down.